David "Dudu" Mizrahi, former deputy CEO and CFO at Bezeq Israeli Telecommunication Co. Ltd. (TASE: BEZQ), who stormed out of the company because of his opposition to the value at which insider transactions were being carried out, has now been appointed CEO of the company in place of Stella Handler. Mizrahi left Bezeq in late 2016, and was appointed CFO of Partner Communications Ltd. (Nasdaq: PTNR; TASE: PTNR), serving one year in the post. In January this year he became deputy CEO and CFO of food company Tnuva.
Handler has acceded to the board's request to extend her time as CEO by two months until August 31 to enable Mizrahi to conclude his job at Tnuva properly and to have an orderly handover period.
Mizrahi's name cropped up as a possible replacement immediately it became known that Handler was leaving. Over 15 years, he worked his way up the ranks at Bezeq. He has the support of the Bezeq workers committee as someone sprung from among them.
Not many people get the chance to close a circle the way Mizrahi is now doing, after he left Bezeq in protest at all the events that led to the insider transactions between Bezeq and satellite broadcaster Yes, the purchase of Eurocom's holding in Yes for some NIS 1 billion, and the Spacecom deal that was favorable to Spacecom, owned by Shaul Elovitch who was the controlling shareholder in Bezeq, Eurocom and Spacecom, at Bezeq's expense. These transactions are under investigation by the Israel Securities Authority.
Mizrahi, and the Bezeq group altogether, face serious challenges, headed by rehabilitating Bezeq's stock and restoring investor confidence after a severe crisis following the revelation that the former controlling shareholder had extorted the company and the board of directors had kowtowed to him and approved the problematic transactions.
Bezeq's share price rose 2.17% today.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on June 17, 2018
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